Still, I had the nagging doubt which bothered me — how did I know that what Pastor Prince was preaching, as he supports his teachings with extensive references to the Word God, rightly dividing his teachings on the Old Testament through the Finished Work of Jesus Christ.
Then I remembered a secular example of a great statesman, one who wrote unshakable truths who did not live according to them: Thomas Jefferson. He penned the following noble statement, one which nations and peoples all over the world have learned and taken to heart ever since the Virginia planter first wrote them:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Now, Jefferson was a renowned Deist — he did not accept the Divinity of Jesus Christ or of the Scriptures. In fact, he published a hateful and powerless version of the New Testament, devoid of Christ's miracles, and worst of all, completely leaving out the Finished Work of the Cross. Like many established statesmen who helped found the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson understood Christ Jesus only as example and not Savior and Supply.
His understanding of the Creator was faulty, and he did not honor the truth that all men are created equal. This man owned a plantation full of slaves, with one of which, Sally Hemmings, he fathered five children. After his death, he only released five slaves from bondage, which many historians have acknowledged were the five children he sired with Hemmings. This man did not live according to the ideals which he made famous in the Declaration of Independence, yet that does not diminish neither the truth nor the nobility of what he wrote.
Back to Pastor Prince, he has presented Christ as the primacy of all scripture. This is a true saying, as Christ Himself taught of Himself when he appeared in resurrection life to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They did not recognize Him until He had first expounded all things concerning Himself in the Scriptures, from Moses and the Psalms and the Prophets.
Yet another example of Christ as not just the primacy of all Scripture but the surest assurance of Scripture as His place in our lives came forth to me when I read John 4. There, Jesus reveals himself to a Samaritan woman, a maligned woman who had had five husbands and was at that time living with a sixth man. She met the seventh, Jesus, who revealed to her all that she had done, yet did not shame her. In fact, Jesus directly revealed Himself to her as the Messiah.
When we read scripture, we can know the truth of what we read because Jesus has spoken it, and the Scriptures testify of His Person, His Work, and His Supremacy. In one day, a shamed and fallen woman became a bold evangelist, free of self-conscious condemnation:
"And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.
"So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.
"And many more believed because of his own word;
"And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." (John 4: 39-42)
The other Samaritans came to believe by the testimony of the transformed woman at the well. Yet when they met Jesus Himself, they then testified "Now we believe, not because of thy testimony, for we have heard Him ourselves."
Joseph Prince has revealed more of Christ's Blessed Person, yet I believe on Him not because of the person who teaches me, but because I have read the Word myself. It is not Pastor Prince's faith or charisma that changes a person, that transforms a person from glory, but rather the Holy Spirit. Having read this wonderful account in John 4 with this perspective, I thank God who has informed me of His power and wisdom by the Power of the Holy Spirit.
I am also delighted to hear that even Pastor Joseph Prince began to doubt the ministry which he was unfolding. Yet he shares that another established theologian affirmed that the preaching of God's grace ought to be such, that individuals who hear it will at first be troubled that the Gospel will become a license to sin.
If that were not enough, a work entitled "Classic Christianity" by Oregon Pastor Bob George affirmed everything that I have learned from Pastor Prince, right down to sample analogies to explain the grace of God, the inner workings of the Holy Spirit, and how God wants us to reign in life not by our self-efforts, but rather by resting in the Finished Work of Jesus Christ and allowing His Life to burst through us!
This doubt was therefore put away in my life once and for all. It is the primacy of Scripture, the supremacy of Christ that matters, nothing more. Any discrepancies with a preacher on TV or at the pulpit can be resolved by returning to the Word of God!
Hallelujah!